All kids out of the pool!: Brand Identity, Television Animations, and Adult Audience of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, Hye Jin Lee, University of Iowa
-what is the meaning of “adult” in Adult Swim, and how does the show as well as its audience define what it means to be an adult/what constitutes adult content?
-“Adult Swim enabled Cartoon Network to recontextualize classic cartoons and challenge the assumption that cartoons and animation are children-only entertainment” [p.3]
-what is the relationship between media and brand/lifestyle content and how can this be used to profit off the viewer? in what ways does this take advantage of the consumer or water down product?
-“Through the use of various multimedia technologies, Adult Swim encourages viewers to not only intensify their relationship with the programming, but also to further extend and normalize the Adult Swim brand culture. And by marketing Adult Swim as a lifestyle rather than simple a television programming, it had been able to become a successful multiplatform brand today” [p. 12]
- “Being designed as an outlet in ‘edgy’, ‘subversive’ cartoons that specifically appeal to young adults, Adult Swim has been able to collect adult cartoon fans who not only enjoy watching cartoons but do not consider watching cartoons to be an ‘abnormal’ or ‘weird’ adult activity as members of the Adult Swim brand community.” [p. 15]
- convergence culture: giving the viewers the illusion (or potentially, reality) of being part of producing their own content by both viewing and using, aka viewsing, which adult swim did by allowing discussion boards and question & answer segments with creators of the network + featuring certain comments on the network, as well as selling adult swim marketed lifestyle products
- “infantile adulthood”
- “According to Barber (2007), consumer capitalism has encouraged adults to hold onto, if not follow, the tastes and habits of children so more consumer goods and services can be sold globally” [p. 21]
- the author argues that when people worry over men consuming childrens content, but not women, they reveal that they do not view women as real intelligent adults but rather children or subhuman themselves
- author also argues that the boundary between kid and adult culture and content is not natural and instead has been socially and culturally constructed
- Adult Swim markets itself only to men and recruits only male promoters, as well as relying on sexist jokes, yet that does not dissaude female audiences
- “Heather Hendershot points out how this industry logic that encourages girls to be receptive of the boy-centric shows is evocative of Laura Mulvey’s (1988) problemization of the patriarchal society that encourages women (from childhood onwards) to adopt trans-sex identification as a habit to the point of it becoming second nature….it is imperative for contemporary women to embody simultaneously both genders if they want to make it in the patriarchal society full of male-dominated activities.” [p. 66]
- “The long-held establishment and understanding of cartoons as children’s-only genre, or inappropriate/illegitimate adult entertainment form, have created tensions for many of the Adult Swim adult viewers who happen to be cartoon fans, especially those who became attracted to Adult Swim because of its cartoon and anime lineup. As demonstrated in chapter 7, many adult fans of Adult Swim actively defy the notion that cartoons are not for adults and that adults who enjoy watching cartoons are ‘abnormal’ or ‘un-adult’. Even those who acknowledge Adult Swim to be juvenile and immature resist the connection between their consumption and pleasure in cartoons and Adult Swim shows and their identity as ‘immature’ and ‘irresponsible’ adults to fail to fulfill adult responsibilities.” [p. 264]